One in Five Stablecoin Holders Keeps More Than Half Their Savings in Them, and 140 New Issuers Are Racing to Meet That Demand

The people actually holding stablecoins are more committed to them than almost any market commentary acknowledges.

According to the BVNK Stablecoin Utility Report 2026, stablecoin holders allocate an average of 34% of their total savings to crypto and stablecoins. Not a speculative side allocation. Not a small hedge against inflation. One third of everything they have saved. The figure is not a rounding artifact.

It reflects a deliberate portfolio decision playing out across both wealthy and developing economies, driven by fundamentally different motivations that arrive at the same destination.

In emerging markets the allocation averages 36%, compared to 29% in high-income economies. The gap between those two figures matters because it points to different underlying drivers. In high-income markets, the 29% allocation likely reflects a combination of yield-seeking, dollar exposure, and comfort with digital asset infrastructure. In emerging markets, the 36% is more likely driven by necessity than preference. When local currency purchasing power is eroding, banking access is unreliable, or capital controls make conventional dollar holdings difficult, a stablecoin held on a phone is the most rational financial decision available. BVNK frames this explicitly: this is not fringe behavior. It is a deliberate portfolio decision reflecting where holders see value, access, and control.

The 21% figure deserves its own attention. More than one in five stablecoin holders puts more than half of their total savings into these assets. That level of concentration in any single asset class would raise eyebrows among traditional financial advisors. In the context of stablecoins, it reflects how seriously a meaningful portion of the global population is treating dollar-pegged digital assets as a primary savings vehicle rather than a peripheral financial tool.

140 Issuers and Counting

The demand that BVNK’s data captures has not gone unnoticed by the institutions racing to supply it. Artemis data shows that more than 140 stablecoins now have supply above $10 million, a figure that grew 89% in 2025 alone. The Artemis chart tracks stablecoin proliferation from essentially zero qualifying tokens in 2017 through a gradual build to roughly 50 by 2022, and then a near-vertical acceleration through 2025 into 2026. The pace of new entrants has not slowed.

The important clarification buried in that growth figure is what the proliferation is not. More than 99% of total stablecoin supply remains USD-backed. The explosion in stablecoin count has nothing to do with currency diversification, new reserve models, or algorithmic innovation. What is changing is that every major institution has concluded it wants its own distribution layer for the dollar on-chain. PayPal built PYUSD. Ripple launched RLUSD. BlackRock created BUIDL. Stripe acquired Bridge to build stablecoin infrastructure directly into its payment rails. Banks, fintechs, and protocols are each constructing a proprietary channel for the same underlying asset, competing not on what backs the token but on who controls the distribution, the compliance stack, and the institutional relationships.

The dollar is not losing ground to this proliferation. It is multiplying through it. Each new stablecoin is a new on-chain distribution layer for dollar-denominated value, extending U.S. currency reach into payment corridors, savings contexts, and commercial relationships that conventional banking infrastructure cannot efficiently serve. Whether that multiplication ultimately benefits the end users that BVNK’s data describes, or primarily serves the commercial interests of the institutions building the rails, is the question the next wave of regulatory frameworks will be forced to answer.

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